At one time, a knock on the door was from a friend or neighbor looking to borrow some sugar or the hedge trimmer. Today, more often than not, that knock represents someone stopping by for a visit and asking to “borrow” your home network to connect to the Internet.

U.S. consumers carry an average of 2.6 mobile devices, according to recent research by the Cisco Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG). Not only do they expect their devices to connect to the Internet—they also expect friends and neighbors to have home Wi-Fi, just as they have electricity and running water.

Many service providers are now trying to understand how they can create community Wi-Fi networks among their broadband customers and reap new business benefits. However, they have very little research on customer behaviors that will enable them to design a winning program and build the business case for further investment. To learn more, Cisco IBSG conducted a survey of 1,060 Canadian mobile users to understand their needs and behaviors, their current and future mobile usage, and the average profile of community Wi-Fi users. Read More »

Billed as the world’s largest carrier-grade WiFi event, the Summit was very successful. More than 400 people attended; all the sessions were well attended, with many of them packed; and feedback was positive.

Attendees included industry analysts, media, leading telcos, Wi-Fi and cable operators, roaming hub providers and vendors. The attendance and feedback underscored the growing importance and visibility of WiFi from both the service provider and enterprise perspectives.

Cisco’s Kelly Ahuja delivered one of the keynotes, and other Cisco people participated.

Also exciting from our perspective was that Cisco won two awards, and a key partner – BT – earned one.

When Cisco announced the CRS (Carrier Routing System) in 2004, many analysts and other observers thought it overkill. Some said that Cisco would not sell more than 50.

To date, the number is greater than 8000.

That would seem to fall into the category of “Exceeding Expectations”.

And just how did Cisco do this? In part, by continually staying ahead of the game with enhancements – never waiting for traffic loads, customer demands or other circumstances to force it into catch-up mode.

Today, Cisco continued that practice with further enhancements to the industry-leading CRS platform.

Cisco announced that GTS Central Europe (GTS CE), a leading provider of integrated telecommunications solutions and data center services in Central and Eastern Europe, has deployed the CRS for its Next-Generation Internet core. Cisco new elastic core networking capabilities enable service providers such as GTS CE to cost-effectively launch and scale revenue-generating services within minutes instead of months. The solution includes the industry’s first integrated coherent 100 Gbps IP over DWDM and Cisco’s nLight™ technology for the CRS.

Cisco’s nLight technology converges IP and optical transport networks by introducing programmability to minimize network complexity while maximizing service intelligence and monetization opportunities. This capability significantly reduces network total cost of ownership and is a key element of the Cisco Open Network Environment (ONE) framework.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index, mobile network traffic is expected to increase 26-fold between 2010 and 2015, reaching 6.3 exabytes per month by 2015. Global mobile traffic will grow three times faster than fixed IP traffic over this period. Because of this, mobile operators are trying to align this phenomenal network demand with revenue growth.

WiFi represents a significant business opportunity for service providers. Many fixed, mobile or integrated SPs around the globe are either planning on or are already investing in WiFi services. Although commercial Wi-Fi hotspot services operated by specialized providers have existed for more than 15 years, WiFi is a relatively new business for the majority of SPs and has not reached the level of maturity of other well-established, “carrier-grade” communications services. In particular, unlicensed frequencies and less-developed service management capabilities impose operational challenges.

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